Newbs wanted: hailing a tipping point

For reasons that compose an essay unto itself, I have never been a blogger. Outside of obscure and/or painstakingly anonymous Web projects, my use of the internet as a communication medium is overwhelmingly toward the end of interacting with people I know.

To some degree this is with mailing list or discussion board-based communities which I have "met" via the internet, and tend to be technophiles -- or at least webophiles -- familiar with the medium. But by a large margin most of the megabytes of text, images, and interactive toys I have generated have been for individual friends and associates I know from analog, face-to-face relationships, most of whom happen to be only casual web consumers.

I mention this because I believe I understand the niche Comet/Vox aims to fill in the internet's ecosystem: that is, the gap between broadcast blogging for a public audience and narrowcasted sharing amongst more intimate connections. I support the enterprise; the concept aligns with many of my values regarding community.  Given that my career is in web application development, I will always be interested in new web tools, so it's fun to be involved in the preview process. But given my focus on the personal over the public with respect to digisphere, I wager that I may be closer to the expected eventual audience than most of the peers in my current neighborhood -- most of whom have already demonstrated an interest in public blogging, and most of whom I already interact with via other community channels.

And that's the rub. The group with which I suspect I would share via Vox is not yet on Vox. Of course they aren't; this is a preview. But until those people show, the magic goes unsummoned.

I am curious to see whether and how a media sub-type such as this develops its own style: to what degree it holds a quality of personal intimacy, to what degree the members of a neighborhood interact and reinforce personal bonds, to what degree it attracts and enables individuals and communications that have not already sought outlet on the internet. I hope its something new and interesting. My personal bias is that it takes on a quaility more personal than blogging and richer than social networking websites. What I am realizing is that until the "newbs" arrive, it will probably be closer to each.

Still, I have to do my part. These very words are largely lifted from a rumination composed to be sent via email to someone whose participation with the 'net is nigh exclusively via Hotmail, Google, Amazon, and a handful of additional entertainment and news websites. Instead, I am putting them here. Since this is a personal interaction, I will not endeavor to create a satisfying conclusion.

(Why I tend to use such a stilted, formal style even in my personal correspondence is the topic of yet another essay, I suppose.)